Who is Isang Yun?

Like Toro Takemitsu, and Tan Dun whose work is also being play at CCMF this year, Korean composer Isang Yun’s life and music was subject to the violent upheavals of the 20th Century.

He was born in 1917 when Korea was a colony of Japan…and in 1945, with the defeat of Japan and the division of Korea, Isang Yun worked actively toward the reunification of Korea. This political stance, which he regarded as a humane one, caused him terrible difficulties. Isang Yun’s kidnapping by the South Korean government from Berlin in 1967 created an international outcry. In prison he was tortured, attempted suicide, forced to confess to espionage, and threatened with the death sentence, but ultimately sentenced to life in prison. Yun wasn't released until February 23rd 1969, returning to West Berlin at the end of March.

Today, Isang Yun is acclaimed as a national composer in both the North and South Korea. By 1990, the capital, Pyongyang, had established a festival, institute and ensemble in Mr. Yun’s name. In South Korea, the Tongyeong International Music Festival was founded in Mr. Yun’s honor in 2000.

How do we understand Isang Yun’s music? “His musical language is not simple for Western listeners because it is harmonically and melodically from another place.”

Isang Yun was one of the pioneers in the fusion of Eastern and Western avant-garde music. “Yun's music employed techniques associated with traditional Korean music, such as glissandi, pizzicati, portamenti, vibrati, and above all a very rich vocabulary of ornaments.”

Listen to cellist Meta Weiss play Glissee II to hear unusual (and difficult) techniques Isang Yun used in his music.

​Conductor Dennis Russell Davies has called Mr. Yun “a father figure for Asian-European music,” comparing him to 19th-century Western composers who elevated the native idioms of their countries into classical form.

Listen to oboists Heinz Holliger Marie-Lise Shupbach play Invention IV, Harmonie, in a church in Germany to get a sense of a unique blend of musical traditions.

Festival composer sketches by NANCY SUMMERS

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